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Brothers and Sisters, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a press conference today (27 July) in San Francisco to announce the releasing of their report which documents government spying on unions, anti-war organizations and just ordinary people. This report on government violations of our civil liberties stunningly documents cases of surveillance, infiltration and physical attacks on protesters. Probably most annoying, though not surprising, is that police are monitoring this ILWU discussion list. Please take the time to read this ACLU report carefully. Articles on this will appear in Fridays’ New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. These are our rights. Use them or lose them. To hell with agents of the PMA and cops spying on our freedom of speech....... that’s why we ban them from membership in ILWU Local 10. Not much has changed with the role of police since the Big Strike in ‘34. In solidarity, Jack excerpt The State of SurveillanceCONTRA COSTA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT: Secretly Monitoring Labor Rally When Southern California Safeway store workers went on strike in 2003 2004, reaching an impasse on health care issues raised in contract negotiations, demonstrators voiced their opinions at Northern California Safeway venues as well. A delegation of religious leaders planned a pilgrimage to the home of Safeway CEO Steve Burd, located in the Contra Costa County city of Alamo, to deliver postcards supporting the striking workers. At the same time, the Contra Costa Sheriff ‘s Department used its Homeland Security Unit to monitor the activity of labor activists in San Francisco. On January 23, 2004, two men identifying themselves as members of the Contra Costa County Sheriff ‘s Homeland Security Unit went to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) offices in Martinez, the union representing Safeway workers, to ask about the pilgrimage. UFCW staff told them that they were not organizing the event and directed them to a contact number on a flyer. The next day - despite the fact that the sheriff ’s department had been in contact with the pilgrimage organizers - union leaders saw the same sheriff ‘s deputies in plainclothes attending a demonstration at a Safeway store in San Francisco. California Labor Federation Leader Art Pulaski approached the deputies and asked them if they were law enforcement. They denied it. One of the deputies said, “My brother is in Iraq and my father is a union oil worker. I’m just here to support the strikers.” When a UFCW staff member confirmed that the two men were in fact from Homeland Security, Pulaski asked them again - several times. The men finally admitted that they were sheriff ‘s deputies in the Homeland Security Unit. Pulaski responded by telling the deputies, “We are alarmed at having undercover officers at a union rally. I have to tell you that I am greatly off ended that you wouldn’t give your name[s] and that you continued to lie about being in law enforcement.” The Labor Federation went public about the surveillance. At a press conference denouncing the clandestine monitoring of the rally, Law Professor and former California State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grodin said, “The kind of infiltration has the inevitable consequence of chilling the participation of innocent people in what is otherwise a constitutionally protected activity.” Lutheran Pastor Carol Bean, one of the organizers of the pilgrimage, wondered, “When did priests and postcards become a threat to national security?” Representatives from the ACLU-NC and its Mt. Diablo Chapter, the local League of Women Voters, the San Francisco Labor Coalition, and Reverend Phil Lawson (a clergy leader involved in the pilgrimage) met with and wrote letters to Sheriff Warren Rupf expressing concern about the monitoring. Sheriff Rupf claimed that his deputies were not there to spy on labor leaders and were not performing “homeland security” functions. The deputies were attending the rally, he said, to learn about crowd management from the San Francisco Police Department. Sheriff Rupf refused to release any police reports or other documents on the decision to send the deputies to the rally or the information they gathered. Rupf declared that the labor leaders had no privacy rights in their public activities. The department had previously asserted that it was justified in monitoring protests because terrorists could use legal demonstrations. “USING A HOMELAND SECURITY JUSTIFICATION TO MONITOR LAWFUL ACTIVITY IS SENDING A CHILLING AND INTIMIDATING MESSAGE TO ALL OF US.” LABOR LEADER ART PULASKI (Sec. -Treas. Cal. Fed. Of Labor) www.aclunc.org/surveillance_report/SurveillanceReportStatement_Heyman.pdf www.aclunc.org/pressrel/060727-surveillance.html Press Release ACLU REPORT DOCUMENTS GOVERNMENT MONITORING OF LAWFUL PROTEST AND LACK OF REGULATIONSCalls for Guidelines to Protect Free Speech and Privacy Rights of Californians For the full report visit www.aclunc.org/surveillance_report SAN FRANCISCO Federal, state and local agencies have infiltrated or monitored the political activity of Californians throughout central and northern California in what has become a disturbing trend, according to an ACLU-NC report released today. From the stories of grandmothers opposing the war in Iraq to anti-war protestors at the Port of Oakland, the 35-page report tells the compelling stories of individuals and groups that were targets of government surveillance because of their political activity. The report entitled The State of Surveillance: Government Monitoring of Political Activity in Northern and Central California also illustrates the lack of enforcement of current regulations and recommends specific policy reforms to safeguard Californians’ rights to privacy and free speech. “The incidents in this report represent a disturbing trend in law enforcement that is fueled by greater funding of federal, state and local intelligence agencies, a national climate of fear, and a troubling lack of regulation,” said Mark Schlosberg, author of the report and Police Practices Policy Director of the ACLU-NC. Since September 11, 2001, dozens of organizations have had their protests monitored by intelligence agencies. Peaceful protests were included in anti-terrorism bulletins and databases and undercover officers have posed as activists to gather information and influence decisions, according to the report. The ACLU makes several policy recommendations including state legislation regulating the National Guard, the State Terrorism Threat Assessment Center, and the state Office of Homeland Security. The California Attorney General should also issue specific guidelines to local law enforcement agencies and state law should require regular reporting on surveillance activities to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. “We applaud those that refuse to be silenced, but fear that for others, government surveillance of political activity will have a chilling effect, ” said Dorothy Ehrlich, executive director of the ACLU-NC. “Free speech, political dissent, and rigorous public debate are the foundation of a strong democracy and that is why it is so important to preserve these precious rights in times of crisis. If history is any guide, the stories documented in this report represent only the tip of the iceberg.” DOCUMENTS www.aclunc.org/surveillance_report/index.html Timeline of Government Surveillance Profiles of Speakers Natalie Wormeli Statement Donna Hardina Statement Camille Russell Statement Jack Heyman Statement Matthew Taylor Statement Ruth Obel-Jorgenson Statement Dan Yaseen Statement ILWU Local 10 former BA Calls Oakland Police Action “Totaliatarian” ACLU demands Lockyer act on surveillancewww.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_4104454 By Josh Richman - STAFF WRITER Inside Bay Area SAN FRANCISCO - State and local police agencies have spied on Northern California political groups and events from 2001 through today, and the state Attorney General must act on his vows to stop it, a civil-rights group said Thursday. An American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California report calls for new laws explicitly barring state intelligence agencies from spying on political groups, and creating an independent inspector-general position to probe possible violations. “Often, law enforcement fails to recognize their duty to protect the right to protest,” ACLU-NC executive director Dorothy Ehrlich said at a news conference announcing the report, which compiles previously reported instances of surveillance since Sept. 11, 2001. “Much of what we’ve learned, we’ve learned by chance... This report is just the tip of the iceberg.” Among the report’s examples:
International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 business agent Jack Heyman was at the 2003 Port of Oakland protests, and said Thursday an Oakland Police official later had called the May event’s infiltration “proactive.” “I call it being totalitarian,” Heyman said, calling the ACLU report “a searing indictment of the draconian measures being used in the bipartisan war on terror.” Lockyer spokesman Tom Dresslar later Thursday said his office hadn’t read the report yet, but has a good relationship with the ACLU and other civil-rights groups and will keep working with them on these issues. “We have done some training of local law enforcement personnel,” he said. “While the Attorney General thinks we’ve made some improvements, some progress, he has by no means reached a comfort level on this issue, and we’re going to continue to do what we can to make sure constitutional rights are protected.” After this newspaper uncovered CATIC’s role in the April 2003 Port of Oakland protest, Lockyer in September 2003 issued a manual advising law enforcement agencies that monitoring or infiltrating political groups without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity violates the state constitution’s privacy right. Yet Thursday’s report says a recent ACLU survey found most local police agencies haven’t developed policies to implement the manual’s standards. And surveillance continues, noted ACLU-NC Police Policy Practices director Mark Schlosberg. News agencies recently reported the State Terrorism Threat Assessment Centers - a joint effort of Lockyer’s Justice Department, the California Highway Patrol and the state Office of Homeland Security - received briefs on a Walnut Creek antiwar protest attended by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez; a San Francisco animal-rights rally; and an Santa Barbara antiwar rally. Schlosberg noted that Lockyer and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger condemned this, and the ACLU is talking with the governor’s office about legislation to prevent it in the future. See the ACLU’s report at |